Final MIAA ruling forces Serbian students off Provincetown basketball team

Friday

Jan 15, 2010 at 12:01 AMJan 15, 2010 at 3:11 PM

Dusan Kojic and Aleksandar Isailovic came here from Serbia, they say, to finish their high school education. Playing basketball was secondary.

Pru Sowers

Final MIAA ruling forces Serbian students off basketball team
Dusan Kojic and Aleksandar Isailovic came here from Serbia, they say, to finish their high school education. Playing basketball was secondary.

However, the two foreign exchange students who enrolled in Provincetown High School this past fall to finish their senior year have become embroiled in a contentious clash between Provincetown and other schools in its sports league that has effectively kicked the two boys off the basketball team.

“Terrible, terrible,” said Lou Preziosi, PHS’s athletic director, about last Friday’s decision by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Council’s decision forbidding the boys from playing ball. The MIAC’s decision was the third denial from the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA), an organization that oversees and sets rules for athletic activities at the 373 state high schools that make up its membership.

The case came before the MIAA after complaints were made by the Sturgis Charter School athletic director and basketball coach to the Lighthouse Conference, the regional athletic league that governs the Cape and Islands schools that play against each other in sports. Chris Maury, president of the conference, said he called Preziosi to ask whether Kojic and Isailovic came into the U.S. via the exchange program endorsed by the MIAA, which is designed to ensure that exchange students come here for academic opportunities and are not recruited for their athletic abilities. While the two boys are here legally, it was discovered they came via another exchange program and, as a result, they needed a waiver from the MIAA to play ball. After hearing their application, that waiver was denied.

“They had some extensive background experience playing. If they’re coming here to play basketball, that’s against our rules,” said Dick Baker, the MIAA assistant director. “It’s not fair to put two outstanding players on [Provincetown’s] team. It’s not fair for the teams they play against.”

The MIAA ruled that Kojic and Isailovic were “impact players,” meaning their level of skill was so good they would have a direct impact on the games they played in, from outplaying their opponents to displacing Provincetown teammates who might not get a chance to play. However, Preziosi disputes the latter charge, saying that Provincetown has at best seven boys on its team. And with a win-loss record so far this year of 0-7, it’s not like the Serbians could move the team to the top of its league.

But the fact remains that the two boys did not apply for a waiver from the MIAA, even though their friend, fellow Serbian Komnen Saric, who attended PHS last year as its first exchange student and who was also a star basketball player, applied and received the same waiver.

“The concern is it was a violation from the standpoint of recruitment. It’s unusual for two [exchange] kids to end up at the same school, much less two kids who are pretty good basketball players,” the Lighthouse Conference’s Maury said.

Both boys swear they were not recruited to Provincetown to help the basketball team improve its standing. Kojic said neither he nor Isailovic spoke to anyone from Provincetown before they submitted their exchange student applications. They were only following in Saric’s footsteps, Kojic said, and were impressed by his stories of what a positive experience he had in Provincetown last year.

“We came here to be students,” Kojic said. “We came here to play basketball. But first of all we came here for education.”

However, the day after the MIAC’s ruling, while the PHS boys and girls basketball teams were playing Cape Tech with Kojic and Isailovic in the stands cheering, the exchange students were also making plans to immediately transfer out of PHS to a basketball-focused private Christian high school, God’s Academy, located just outside of Dallas. While that school’s website states that the school was founded six years ago to help underprivileged children go to college, the website barely mentions academics and is dominated by its students’ basketball efforts. The school’s boys and girls varsity team win-loss record is listed on the home page, along with photos of several graduates in team jerseys who are now playing at the college level. The athletic director, Tim Miller, is the only contact person listed and his coaching biography boasts that “he has put over 80 kids in colleges over the last five years.”

“God’s Academy had 100 percent player-to-college two years in a row,” the website states. And when contacted, Miller said the school is “the number-one private Christian school in basketball in the country.”

Kojic and Isailovic were waiting Monday to hear whether they would be admitted to God’s Academy. Because it is a private institution, public school transfer regulations would not apply, meaning the boys do not have to wait one year before they can play varsity ball. And with a longer game season at God’s Academy, 40 games instead of the 13 played at PHS, the boys can still have a significant season.

“We just want to play basketball,” Kojic said. “If there is some opportunity to play, why not take it?”

The attempt to transfer has perplexed local school officials. District Principal Kim Pike said PHS students have enjoyed getting to know Kojic and Isailovic and the two boys are good students. But the possible transfer to a basketball-focused private school has raised some questions, she said.

“Anybody hearing that would say if they came here to be students, why are they leaving?” Pike said.

“They swear they were here for an education. To be determined,” said Preziosi, who was hired after the Serbians applied for admittance into PHS and had no involvement with their acceptance.

In the meantime, fellow PHS basketball teammates are dealing with the absence of two players who practiced religiously with them until the MIAA decision, which occurred shortly before the season started.

“Dusan [Kojic] has such a passion for basketball. He was willing to share that with me, He made me love basketball,” said Isaiah Ayala, a PHS senior on the basketball team. “It would have been great to play all as one. We all have a really great connection with each other. That’s one thing [Kojic] taught me, teamwork.”